This one was probably of the easiest one of my list to cross off!
I live just a couple minutes walk away from Calton Hill and one night, when I was feeling horribly homesick, the Brit told me to get up and that we were going up Calton Hill to watch the sunset. Gosh I love him!
We walked out and realised quickly that perhaps it wasn’t the greatest of days – it was getting dark and also very stormy – but nothing to hinder our enthusiasm for this spontaneous outing.
Going up Calton Hill is not a feat – I thought we had only started to go up the hill but oh we were already at the top..that tells you something! And then we walked a bit further and the wind hit us like crazy! Yep we chose literally the day after the end of hurricane Gonzalo hit the UK to go up this stupid hill. Not going to lie, the Scottish seaside is windy, but this was beyond crazy, I almost got knocked down once, that tells you how crazy it was!
It didn’t stop us though from going around the top of the hill, taking photos of the gorgeous views it gives upon the city and silly photos of ourselves despite the wind.
We passed through our garden to head to the hill 😉
terribly blurry feet shot
view toward the east – toward the sea
View toward the south-west – Dugald Stewart Monument in the foreground, castle and town centre in the background
Nelson Monument
trying to hide from the wind
nice photo now
lights up
National Monument of Scotland
selfie silliness + wind
and on the way down
To anyone who might be coming to visit Edinburgh, I would say the walk up Calton Hill is very easy and brings great views over the city! If you only have a few days in town, unless you love hiking obviously, I would skip Arthur’s Seat and just go for Calton Hill instead. You can easily go up, take photos, and come down in less than one hour. And it’s easily accessible from the city centre, from the east end of Princes Street/Regents Road.
